Among the cargoes brought into the port of Marseilles in Provence during the mid seventeenth century by the Compagnie des Indes Orientales were desirable cotton prints from India.  They consisted of dazzling patterns and striking colours, which captured the imagination. Quickly they gained an enviable reputation for being colourfast, which made them appear almost miraculous. The colours included red from madder (garance plant) and blue (indigo plant) and they became generically known as ‘indiennes’ because of their origin. These light, vibrant prints became enormously popular and quite the Vogue at Paris and at the court of Louis XIV. Aristocrats and artists turned them into all manner of fashionable apparel.

Famous playwright Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (1622 – 1673) known as Moliere, starred as the foolish hero in a production of his play for the King Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme in 1670 at the court of Versailles dressed in the popular prints worn upside down. It was a great lark. The result of this craze at court seriously jeopardized the growing silk and wool textile industries of France and it became so serious that in 1686 King Louis XIV through his Arts & Industry Minister Louvois, was forced to ban the import of the much sought after cottons from India. Banning the product only further fueled the fire of demand and smuggling became the order of the day.

It was much the same over in England where the instant popularity of cottons from India, called chintz resulted in a depression and even riots in the silk and linen weaving trades.

All was blamed on Queen Mary (1650 – 1702) who had a perchance for colourful printed fabrics.  The trade was damaging English manufactory and so the English Parliament passed an act in 1720 to restrain and prohibit the use of them as well. (It forbade ‘the Use and Warings in Apparel of imported chintz, and also its use or Wear in or about any Bed, Chair, Cushion or other Household furniture‘.)

The passion for these fabrics caused local manufacturers to take notice and the first recorded manufacture of copies using carved wooden blocks to print from in France was at Marseilles in 1656.

Some of the Grand Seigneurs and Grandes Dames at court decided that they should grab an opportunity to fund production of an all new local product. However the quality was not nearly as good as the imported.

In the eighteenth century the ever expanding markets for trade in textiles from both the Middle and Far East contributed greatly to the success of many western economies during the eighteenth century.

The invention in 1733 of the ‘flying shuttle’, the ‘spinning Jenny’ in 1765 and the chain loom in 1768 made their presence felt. Industrial weaving and spinning centers improved greatly at this time, and mechanization led to a fall in prices and expansion of English and French textiles onto the world market.’

France had to remain competitive.

The late eighteenth and up until the mid nineteenth century, was the golden age for Provencal fabric design and manufacture.

Antoine de Beaulieu a young employee of the Compagnie des Indes finally committed industrial espionage to discover that metallic salts, called mordants were the key to the process. They combined with the dyes to form an insoluble compound on natural fibres.

From 1758 Mme de Pompadour, the powerful mistress of Louis XV campaigned for a free trade in these materials. By the second half of the eighteenth century, France’s production was at last becoming competitive and Louis lifted the ban in 1759.

Because the cotton fabric was so light it brought about a revolution in European clothing. Its washability made it also very suitable for bed hangings, bed curtains and bedspreads.

By 1785 at Tarascon one company dominated the area with its production of superbly printed cottons. Working from a library of print designs, from dainty to dramatic, with fruits, florals, paisleys and geometrics

The traditions associated with the company we know as Souleiado was started in the 18th century by Monsieur Jourdan.

He produced large scarves for ladies (mouchoirs) in three varieties. They were brightly coloured scarves for girls and young woman, grisailles, in muted greys for women  “of a certain age”, with deuils, or sombre toned squares for old women and widows.

The fabric’s manufacture had three elements. The base cloth, which was high quality cotton of over 150 threads per square inch.

The graceful block based prints were a mélange of naiveté and sophistication. And their colours reflected the flora of the regions in France in which they were manufactured.

Under Louis XVI (1754-1793) and again following the Revolution, the most popular of the prints were produced on a bronze coloured base. This was then covered with flowers, vines and herbs.

Together with the other fabrics – lawns and batistes the cotton fabrics used in the new French Empire period were meant to project an image of a taste for harmonious simplicity and new ideals of democracy.

Napoleon, Josephine and her ladies in the garden at Malmaison by Jean Louis Victor Viger du Vigneau

In the early nineteenth century designs became more stylized and during the reign of Napoleon 1, petite designs came into vogue. Enchanted he bought baskets full for Josephine and the ladies of the court. At this time the fabrics preferred were geometric, and many today still have a surprising contemporary look.

In 1818 one of the Avignon craftsmen printers, Leonard Quinche formed a partnership with two men from Tarascon to build a mill at St. Etienne du Gre near Tarascon. This mill was 140 years later to become known as Les Olivades.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the arrival and acceleration of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and England provoked massive change, and the cotton industry suffered a further decline.

This resulted in a lot of small producers selling out or joining larger companies. Great collections of the precious carved wooden print blocks were burned as detritus of another age. Only in areas such as lower Provence did a few companies manage to survive.

Following World War II these lovely prints started to once again re-appear internationally. The designs were transferred from the few remaining old carved blocks onto copper plates, complete with imperfections – a charming touch.

Traditions established so long ago with the indiennes still continue today in a blending of time honoured techniques and modern manufacturing methods. Provencal fabrics remain distinct and harmonious, conveying  a warm welcoming feeling.

Today chemical dyes replace the original vegetable dyes, but the colourful pastiche of shades and pattern really work well when mixed together with other fabrics, particularly en masse, and they combine brilliantly in all decors. Their rich earthy colours look particularly attractive when combined with the dark patina of antique wood in a colourful house in Provence. In its interior there is little effort to make everything ‘match’ or even maintain a continuity of periods.

What is to be admired is that the French mix what they like with what they need and with what the family has handed down with a sense of great style in a look that is both eclectic and cohesive.

Tres chic!

Carolyn McDowall ©The Culture Concept Circle 2011

*Vincent Van Gogh

Related posts:

1. French Country Style – Provence and joi de vivre
2. French Country Style – Provence is c’est magnifique!
3. English Country Style – Understated Georgian Grace

Apollo and his twin sister Artemis at the Chatéau de Versailles, France

When we have run our passions’ heat
Love hither makes his best retreat
The gods, that mortal beauty chase
Still in a tree did end their race;

There are a few things I really respond to, inspiration wise. They include images of the ancient Greek God Apollo and his twin sister Artemis, early and new age classical music by France’s King Louis XIV’s favourite composer Jean-Baptiste de Lully (1632-1687) and contemporary award-winning Irish-Norwegian duo Secret Garden, as well as poetry by one of the great English romantic lyric poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). The music I have playing when I walk, the poetry I read when I cannot sleep, Artemis is my muse and Apollo my computer screen saver – so we will talk a little of him today. For those not familiar with Apollo he was, in ancient Greek mythology, the God of archery, music, poetry, the plague (somehow they don’t go together) oracles, the sun, prophecy, medicine and knowledge. From all the images we have of him he was a handsome beardless athletic radiant youth, a favourite of the rest of the gods who represented harmony, order and reason. His father was Zeus, the most powerful of all the gods, his mother Leto a daughter of the Titans who ruled in ancient Greece’s golden age.

Apollo is all about light and truth. Being one of the favoured twelve Olympian Gods (they gathered together on the top of Mount Olympus), Apollo was about the best we can endeavour to be. He is meant to help us meet the challenges of the day.

Apollo, gathering the reins, about to take off so that he can spend his day riding across the sky and watching down and over all us below.

My most favourite image of Apollo is one I last saw myself on a tour overseas for the Academy of Design and Decorative Arts. It imparts the most wonderful feeling of calm and peace when I view it at the beginning and end of each day as I wake my computer up and then when I put it to sleep, interestingly corresponding with his working day as well.

The rest of the time he’s hidden by the light of other daily rituals and writing. In the fountain sited in the garden at the Chatéau Versailles he is accompanied by tritons and dolphins. His silhouette stands in high relief against a backdrop of splendid ancient trees, which a year after this photo was taken were all but wiped out in a freak storm prompting a campaign to replant the over 10,000 trees destroyed. At this stage they were still magnificent, their leaves in all shades of copper through red, mostly denuded, the last just clinging on towards the end of the autumn fall. The stand of trees together form a cathedral like structure, arching majestically across a path that leads to the fountain, which is his launching pad. He is depicted sitting eagerly forward on the edge of the seat in his chariot, one hand holding onto its side as if to steady himself, while the other is gathering the reigns of his stellar horses.

Louis XIV of France, a mighty Apollo

He is about to take off so he can spend his day riding across the sky and watching down and over all of us below. His mirror image appears reflected in the ever changing shimmering pool of water, whose surface takes on all the soft hues and sensuous shades of the sky. As the colours slowly soften and fade slowly silence descends and then he merges into the shadows to rest until the dawning of the new day.

This magnificent sculptural group was created by sculptor Jean Baptiste Tubby for France’s King Louis XIV who aligned himself with Apollo, seeing himself as the leading light in his people’s lives. Jean-Baptiste de Lully wrote the joyous music, which united all in Louis XIV’s virtuoso era. Great sacred and secular works were filled with pathos; musical melody exploited by the human voice in powerful performances of sensuous beauty and soaring vitality.

Throughout the Chatéau and its gardens there are many references and images of Apollo. Another of the most famous groups was completed by Francois Girardon (1628-1715) most likely in a collaboration with Thomas Regnaudin. Girardon was a master of the classical style and was highly approved of by the French Academy that established rules of execution for art.

The three groups completed are now in the gardens, but originally they were in a grotto that was demolished. The first group features Apollo with the nymphs of the sea who attend him at night. One is holding a vase, which is a reference to Louis XIV’s ‘crossing of the Rhine’ an important victory for the French in 1674. It also is meant to refer that Louis XIV is indeed himself a young Apollo.

The second group is a set of horses being tended by some of Apollo’s attendants. and the third is of his horses drinking after their journey of the day.

While all the images are drawn from classical antiquity sculptors in ancient Greece did not arrange their statues in group settings. These have been designed to come together more like a contemporary painting like that perhaps of renowned French artist Francois Poussin (1594-1665).

Apollo is a very complex Greek God with all sorts of symbolic significance, cults and considerations as well as many finer points of detail about his persona and his association with other Gods.

My next image of him is likely to be a Roman copy of an original Greek statue Apollo made in about the year 130 after the Christ event. The Romans loved to copy ancient Greek works of art. they saw them as a pinnacle of achievement and were inspired by them. The famous original was rendered by one of ancient Greece’s most admired sculptors, Leochares somewhere between 350 and 325 BC or, four centuries before the Christ event. It was described by Greek geographer Pausanias as having stood in the agora, or market place at Athens.

Found in the last few decades of the fifteenth century our antique reproduction of Apollo found his resting place in the garden courtyard of the Pope at the Vatican. He became known as the Apollo Belvedere, because the courtyard where he was placed was designed to command a wonderful view out over Rome.

Apollo Belvedere in the Summer Garden at Saint Petersburg

The highpoint of the statue’s popularity was in the eighteenth century when Superintendent of Roman antiquities at Florence,  German archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-68) announced in 1763.

‘I place at the feet of this statue the idea of it that I have given, imitating those, who placed at the feet of the simulacra of the gods the wreaths that they could not place on their heads’.

And so this image became the summit touched by Greek art in giving form to ideal beauty.

The Apollo Belvedere perfectly fits into that category of the Golden Age when Greek art is considered to have reached classical ‘perfection’, which in reality means a high standard of excellence.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries those who wished to view him queued for hours. However today he mostly stands alone, unobserved. But Why?

Does the Apollo Belvedere stands alone because we accept he’s not perfect? So in reality he’s become like one of us flawed and fragile? He was brought down to size when there was all sorts of accusations about his homoerotic appeal in the prudish Victorian age. The criticism continued throughout the twentieth century, ultimately to a point of complete neglect until the noted English art historian Sir Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) observed ‘that for four hundred years after it was discovered the Apollo was the most admired piece of sculpture in the world’. Now it seems it is only visiting coach parties and the fictional character Professor Robert Landon who visits him, despite the Apollo Belvedere being one of the so-called ‘treasures’ Napoleon looted from the Vatican. As Langdon pointed out as he hurried past Apollo in the da Vinci code…at some stage one of the Pope’s had the manhood removed from many a male statue, including Apollo.

Perhaps the original part of his personality was tagged and filed away somewhere in the Vatican Museum’s vastness? So does that make him now a symbol of male emasculation? Surely we are better than that. Apollo Belvedere is an important symbol of our cultural, spiritual and social growth.

So, have we as human beings reached a point in our own development where we believe there is no such thing as perfection, at least this side of eternity? Or is it that in viewing the Apollo’s perfection we feel uncomfortable because we realise that we have not yet reached that desirable point of inner growth he represented?

Montage of the Apollo Mission badges

American astronauts chose to reach for the stars by riding with Apollo to his heavenly home. At some times it was rocky. However they would all say I am sure, that it was always inspiring.

“We went to explore the Moon, and in fact discovered the Earth” said former NASA astronaut, engineer and the last man to set foot on the moon Eugene Cernan.

Perhaps the last word must go to the poet Percy Byshe Shelley…

‘The world’s great age begins anew…the golden years return’.

Hymn of Apollo

Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. I am reliably informed that there is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts held, for the greater good, at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, England.

The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries
From the broad moonlight of the sky,
Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,—
Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn,
Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.

Then I arise, and climbing Heaven’s blue dome,
I walk over the mountains and the waves,
Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;
My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves
Are filled with my bright presence, and the air
Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.

The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;
All men who do or even imagine ill
Fly me, and from the glory of my ray
Good minds and open actions take new might,
Until diminished by the reign of Night.

Apollo Belvedere in the gardens of Pavlovsk at St Petersburg

I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers
With their aethereal colours; the moon’s globe
And the pure stars in their eternal bowers
Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;
Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine
Are portions of one power, which is mine.

I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven,
Then with unwilling steps I wander down
Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;
For grief that I depart they weep and frown:
What look is more delightful than the smile

With which I soothe them from the western isle?
I am the eye with which the Universe
Beholds itself and knows itself divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse,
All prophecy, all medicine is mine,
All light of art or nature;—to my song
Victory and praise in its own right belong.

Carolyn McDowall, The Culture Concept, 2011

Related posts:

1. Alleluia Apollo, Vitruvius, Palladio, Mozart and Jenkins
2. Jean Baptiste Lully, Noble Simplicity and Quiet Greatness
3. Apollo, from the Earth to the Moon – Imagination & Knowledge

The Chateau at Versailles in France is an amazing place to visit. In its day it cost the equivalent price of what we would pay now for a modern city airport. It was an object of universal admiration in its time, enhancing French prestige on the world stage. For a first time visitor its scale and size is often completely hard to come to terms with. In a word, it’s overwhelming. Just to walk around it requires that you be fit, wear good walking shoes and take water and sustenance to keep you going otherwise most of your time will be spent on queues. It is a very popular destination, not only with the rest of the world but also with the French themselves, who are anxious to understand many of the complexities of their culture and its tumultuous history.

Louis XIV of France at birth, September 5, 1638 was called dieudonne, God given. The suggestion is the French themselves couldn’t believe Louis XIII had achieved parentage without divine intervention. Louis XIV was one quarter French, half Spanish by his mother Anne of Austria and the final quarter Italian by his grandmother Marie de Medici. He became King in 1643 when his father Louis XIII died and he was only 5 years of age. The affairs of state were placed in the hands of his father’s advisor Cardinal Mazarin and his mother Anne of Austria. Not long after his father’s death an internal political and military civil struggle began. Now known as The Fronde, it was a civil dispute about reining back the growing power of royal government and giving French aristocrats more power. At one point it became so dangerous his mother had to hide the young King.

Watch our You Tube Video or read on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrcsQI1JN-Q

Louis grew up in a gilded cage and until he came of age he suffered from neglect, poverty, misfortune, fear, humiliation, cold, and hunger. He would never forget the complete terror and instability of that time and most historians believe his later insistence on ruling absolutely and depriving his nobility of any powers at all, was a result of his childhood experiences. At 13 an Englishman, who saw the ceremony that marked the end of his minority, described him as a young Apollo.

Louis XIV of France (1638 – 1715) was 21 when he is reputed to have said the now famous words, l’état, c’est moi, I am the state, taking control of his own destiny when Cardinal Mazarin died. He was only 5’5” tall, but authority made him seem taller. and his courtiers gloried in his good looks. He could remember the dark days of the Fronde vividly and it impacted on a decision to move the court out of Paris where mob rule was always a possibility.

He had decided to transform his father’s modest hunting lodge, which was nearby the village of Versailles, into a grand estate housing both his family and the court of France. At Versailles Louis would build high walls and gates for security, billet his own private army and becoming master of all he surveyed. He had an excellent figure, perfect hands, feet and legs, which he was extremely vain about. He had small but brilliant eyes through which he gave the impression of seeing everything, and everybody. In his youth he could be quite ruthless but he was always described as remaining dignified, gracious and exquisitely polite. He believed that he was endowed with excellent taste

Louis surrounded himself with all the top creative people of his day at Versailles. He protected writers who sang his praises, his architects Louis Le Vau and Francois Mansart and designer Charles le Brun as well as Andre le Notre his much loved gardener. They provided the stage set on which he stood imposing his visions of beauty and nature on everyone.

As Louis XIV watched his buildings go up, his first Minister of State Jean Baptiste Colbert helped supervise the construction obtaining from him the power and means to carry out an economic royal revolution. Colbert aimed at making France economically self-sufficient, while maximizing its exports.

Manufacturers, the navy, a modern police organization, roads, ports, and canals all emerged at about the same time with Louis himself attending to every detail.

In Comte de Saint Simon’s Memoirs he describes the court at Versailles as a multitude of voyeurs all observing each other’s secrets…’As we were walking in his small hallway, I saw in the mirror at the end of the passage that he was laughing while lowering his eyes, like a man enjoying the conversation he was overhearing’.

A mirror allows nothing to hide in the shadows and at Versailles they were inset into walls and doors so that it became a theatre of reflection and artifice. What more perfect symbol could be found for the dazzling reign of France’s King of Light, Louis the Sun King. From the window of his private apartments overlooking the marble courtyard with his telescope he spied on their comings and goings.

When the Hall of Mirrors was presented to the public in 1684 everyone found something to say in its praise. Seventeen false window casements opposite seventeen real windows were covered with eighteen mirrors placed side by side, unframed, joined by finely carved gilded copper frames. There were 306 panes of glass blended to give the appearance of being part of a larger single pane…the hall vanishing in the radiance of shimmering surfaces and bursts of light.

Everyone admired the Sun King from head to toe without looking at him, which was great fun, but then he could also see them. Some visitors described the hall as the ‘architecture of emptiness’ – reality and reflection supporting each other reciprocally.

Over the years since it was finished the Hall of Mirrors has reflected many great moments in the history of the world. At the time Colbert, Louis’ 1^st Minister and master of ceremonies used it to launch the Royal Mirror Company. Its success gave considerable momentum to the glazing industry in France and increasingly the public became aware of the decor possibilities of a mirror.

France’s appearance and way of life changed forever during the reign of Louis XIV the Sun King. Many great towns throughout France underwent metamorphosis and the landscape altered forever as Louis XIV devoted himself energetically to all his building projects.

Today little remains of his other splendid palaces at Saint-Germain and Marly? Well cursed as an extravagance when it was under construction, and accused of having ruined the nation at the time of the revolution, the chateau at Versailles stands today as a monument to French achievement and the many milestones reached in its historical and cultural journey.

Despite all of the work Louis XIV was to complete at Versailles in his age it was always called le Chateau, (which means Gentleman’s seat) never le Palais, remaining the home of a young man, grand without being pompous, full of light, air and cheerfulness just like a large country house.

Carolyn McDowall, The Culture Concept Circle October 2011

Related posts:

1. Josephine at Château de Malmaison – Cultivating Style
2. The Mistress and the Consort, Paying the Wages of Beauty
3. CLASSIC: Artists & Artisans – Renaissance to Restoration

It is available in video, ebook or podcast format and the complete course can be watched, read or listened to on your computer, iPad, Kindle or iPod.

Segments 1 and 2 are now both available

The four segments that make up the course are
1 Civilised
2 Classic
3 Cultured
4 Creative

• Each segment contains 10+ sessions called ‘days’
• Each session is in two parts (or more)
• Each part approx 20 – 30 minutes duration

2 CLASSIC: ARTIST & ARTISANS Renaissance to Restoration

This part of the course covers the periods from the rebirth of humanism in Italy during the fourteenth century to the restoration of Charles II to the English throne, the rule of James 1, James VI of Scotland and William of Mary and Orange and the end of the seventeenth century. It includes the reign of Louis XIV and his Dream Team expanding the Chateau at Versailles. It surveys the building of England’s great treasure houses at the turn of the seventeenth century, the demise of the Stuart Kings and the growing momentum and effect of the rapidly developing China Trade with England and Europe.

The complete course (Segments 1 – 4) surveys in chronological order the evolution of western art, design and style from antiquity to the modern age. This includes painting, sculpture, architecture, interiors, gardens, musical movements, textiles, glass, objet d’art and much, much more. Each epoch is discussed in relationship to the influence of other cultures as well as intellectual, spiritual and philosophical ideas and social change.

CLASSIC: Program

Death Leonardo da Vinci comforted by Francois 1 by Ingres

Days 11 & 12 – Italian Renaissance – Four Parts
The rediscovery of ancient texts in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe changed perceptions and a new group of accomplished architects and artisans who collectively ushered in a new era in art, design and style. Central to that development was the emergence of the artisan as a creator, an artist who was sought after, supported and respected for his erudition and imagination.

The Villa represented, in architectural form, the cultural ideal of rural life and its frescoed interiors and gardens provided the setting for undisturbed intellectual and creative activities, leisurely conversation with friends and the delights of contemplating the natural and cultivated landscape in different seasons and conditions.

Get Days 11 & 12 as a video, podcast or ebook – click here |  or Get the Complete Course – click here

Days 13 & 14 – The French Renaissance – Three Parts
François 1 dazzled Europe with the sophistication of his court and Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci [1452-1519], former festaivolo at the court of Milan became his ‘Master of the Entertainments’. Following his son Henry II’s untimely death devastating religious wars ensued until Henry IV [1553-1610], the Great, restored France to peace, strong monarchy and stable government. He set about reviving an interest in learning, the arts, as well as rending great public works including the stylish Place Royale (des Voges) in the fashionable Marais district. We will discuss some of the superb chateaux of the Loire and the contribution of two women of influence Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de Medici.

Get Days 13 & 14 as a video, podcast or ebook – click here |  or Get the Complete Course – click here

Who is the boy in blue ! Does he have a story?

Day 15 The Tudors – In the Name of Progress - Parts 1 & 2
Henry VII defeated Richard III at Bosworth Field in 1485, and during his reign ideas that were part of the intellectual life of the Renaissance in Italy would be introduced by Count Baldassare Castiglione a special ambassador to the court from the court at Mantua. His son Henry VIII wanted to outshine the princes of Europe and had the means and innate taste to do so and he set about it with great gusto.

Get Day 15 as a video, podcast or ebook – click here |  or Get the Complete Course – click here

Day 16 The Tudors – In the Name of Progress Part 3
Henry VIII’s son Edward succeeded him as a minor but died before his majortity and the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey lost her head to Bloody Mary, who lasted only five years. When his daughter Elizabeth 1 came to the throne with a new vision for hope in place with a monarch, who had herself suffered and survived a great deal to succeed, a building boom began. This is an age that admired the grotesque among the beautiful.

Get Day 16 as a video, podcast or ebook – click here |  or Get the Complete Course – click here

James 1 England James VI Scotland with behind him architect Inigo Jones Banqueting House painted by Paul van Somer

Day 16 The Stuarts – Divine Right of Kings – Part  1
Under the rule of Mary Queen of Scot’s son James 1 (1566 – 1625) uniting the kingdoms of England, Scotland, Wales and northern Ireland would be a major development, both politically and economically. We examine the works of architect Inigo Jones whose career was interrupted by the demise of Charles 1 [1600 - 1649] who lost his head with the arrival of Cromwell, the Commonwealth and the newly found preference for functionalism.

Get Day 16 as a video, podcast or ebook – click here |  or Get the Complete Course – click here

Day 17 – Dutch Simplicity, Sobriety and Sensuality – Parts 1 & 2
The northern and southern Netherlands [today's Holland and Belgium] was united under Spanish rule until 1579 when a sense of national pride influenced the nature of art including still life. Collectively the works of such as Rembrandt, Rubens and their contemporaries reflect a seventeenth century community of solid, commonplace people supporting a society in which corporate effort for the public good was rewarded by a booming economy.

Get Day 17 as a video, podcast or ebook – click here |  or Get the Complete Course – click here

Charles le Brun, Louis XIV Designer

Day 18 – The Dream Team – Parts 1 & 2
In seventeenth century France Paris was becoming a sophisticated city when the Superintendent of the King’s Finances Nicolas Foucquet, conceived and completed the quintessential French country Chateau Vaux le Vicomte designed by his ‘dream team’ architect Louis Le Vau, designer Charles Le Brun and gardener Andre le Notre.

Get Day 18 as a video, podcast or ebook – click here |  or Get the Complete Course – click here

Day 19 -  The Dream Team Part 3
Louis XIV set about renovating his father’s hunting lodge at Versailles seconding the talents of Foucquet’s ‘dream team’ to create a building project that ultimately influenced the evolution of all the arts in the western world. Louis Le Vau was succeeded on his death at Versailles by Jules Hardouin Mansart (1646-1708) nephew of Francois Mansart and his pupil, who added amongst others the superb Galerie des Glaces. Its interior was to become Charles le Brun’s triumph.

Get Day 19 as a video, podcast or ebook – click here |  or Get the Complete Course – click here

Day 19 – The Stuarts – Restoration – Part 2
Charles II was restored to the English throne in 1660. The Great Plague and Great Fire changed the face of London and architect Sir Christopher Wren was given the task of re-designing London. Due to Charles’s influence England embraced the fashionable ‘Baroque’ style predominant at the French and Dutch courts.

Get Day 19 as a video, podcast or ebook – click here |  or Get the Complete Course – click here

Day 20 – England and its Great Treasure Houses
King James II threw the Great Seal of England into the Thames and fled England when Dutch Protestant rulers William and Mary of Orange claimed the throne of England. Around 1688 some of the grandest architectural gestures in England occur, including Chatsworth a country palace wholly detached in plan and style from current practice and Castle Howard ‘a classical arcadia crowned by a classical dome’, which was created from the ‘bushes, bogs and briars of Yorkshire’. Its gilded windows glinted in the setting sun.

Get Day 20 as a video, podcast or ebook – click here |  or Get the Complete Course – click here

See our Product FAQ by clicking here

“I will remember you (Carolyn McDowall) and The Academy (Design and Decorative Arts) at Brisbane (1998 – 2005) fondly for the enlightenment you brought and the widening of vistas across the cultural world” Cecily Dean, Brisbane

CIVILISED: At the Beginnings of Art – the first segment includes Sessions 1 – 10 They are also available for purchase in podcast, ebook and video format for as little as $1.99.

PLEASE NOTE:

CULTURED: Romantics, Reformers & Revolutionaries will be available March 2012 and CREATIVE on November 1, 2012

For a Complete Outline of the Whole Course – All Four Segments please click here or go to http://www.thecultureconcept.com/circle/evolution-of-art-design-style-complete-course-outline

Carolyn McDowall©The Culture Concept Circle 2011

Related posts:

1. Classic: Artists & Artisans Complete Course
2. CLASSIC Artists & Artisans Day 20 Great Treasure Houses
3. CLASSIC Artists & Artisans, Days 13 & 14 French Renaissance

CLASSIC: ARTIST & ARTISANS
Renaissance to Restoration

This part of the course (Days 11 – 20) covers the periods from the rebirth of humanism in Italy during the fourteenth century to the restoration of Charles II to the English throne, the rule of James 1, James VI of Scotland and William of Mary and Orange. It includes the reign of Louis XIV and his Dream Team le Vau, le Brun and le Notre expanding the Chateau at Versailles. It surveys the building of England’s great treasure houses at the turn of the seventeenth century, the demise of the Stuart Kings and the growing momentum and effect of the rapidly developing China Trade with England and Europe.

The course surveys in chronological order the evolution of western art, design and style from antiquity to the modern age. This includes painting, sculpture, architecture, interiors, gardens, musical movements, textiles, glass, objet d’art and much, much more. Each epoch is discussed in relationship to the influence of other cultures as well as intellectual, spiritual and philosophical ideas as well as social change.

The four segments are entitled
1 Civilised: At the Beginnings of Art
2 Classic: Artists & Artisans
3 Cultured: Romantics, Reformers & Revolutionaries
4 Creative: Courage & Conviction

• Each segment contains 10+ sessions
• Each session is in two parts (or more)
• Each part is approximately 20 – 30 minutes duration

Purchase the Complete Classic: Artists & Artisans – Renaissance to Restoration

Evolution of Art Design and Style – Classic: Artists and Artisans

Video: Days 11-20 Complete

Days 1-10 of our video course as one fantastic bundle! Save $10 on the cost of buying them all individually. Delivered in 19 parts for easy viewing, this includes 19 M4V video files that can be downloaded, and viewed as many times as you like.

Price: $39.99

Updating cart

Podcast: Days 11-20 Complete

Days 11-20 of our course as one fantastic bundle! Save $5 on the cost of buying them all individually. Delivered in 19 parts for easy listening, this includes 19 MP3 audio files that can be downloaded, and listened to as many times as you like.

Price: $14.99

Updating cart

eBook: Days 11-20 Complete

Days 11-20 of our course as one fantastic bundle! Save $5 on the cost of buying them all individually. Delivered as eBooks in 3 formats: ePub, mobi and PDF, these eBooks can be read on most eBook readers.

Price: $24.99

Updating cart

Read the product FAQ

Read the Terms & Conditions

Part One Civilised: At the Beginning of Art can also be purchased by clicking here

Please Note: Part Three Cultured will be published in December  2011

For the Synopsis of the whole course click here

Related posts:

1. CLASSIC: Artists & Artisans – Renaissance to Restoration
2. CLASSIC Artists & Artisans Day 20 Great Treasure Houses
3. CLASSIC Artists & Artisans Day 19 The Dream Team & Stuarts

Related posts:

1. Apollo, Lully, Secret Garden and Shelley – Making my Day
2. CLASSIC Artists & Artisans Day 18 The Dream Team
3. le bon jardinier

Painting by Hendrik Danckerts 1675 depicting Charles II being presented with a pineapple by his gardener John Rose. Pineapples at this time were a symbol of luxury and hospitality

During the seventeenth century in Europe and England, expansion of trade and industry led to a period wherein costume was influenced more by currents in art and intellectual thought than by any other factor. King Charles II of England abandoned puritanical coldness following his restoration to the throne in 1660, revitalising both the English people and the economy. It is not surprising Charles wanted to wear fashionable clothes. Following the years in exile he would have still had vivid memories of the Battle of Worcester in 1651 when he been forced to wear ‘nothing but a green coat and a pair of country breeches on and a pair of country shoes, that made him sore all over his feet that he could scarce stir’. On his return from living abroad following the beheading of his father King Charles I and subsequent civil war in England he gave himself up completely to luxury and pleasure, adorning his stylish person with sumptuous textiles and jewels.

Cupid firing his arrow for love...V & A Museum, London

It would have to be said he wore his fur trimmed breeches very stylishly indeed, especially in this portrait where he is receiving a gift that was not only very fashionable, but also very expensive – the ‘king of fruit’ the pineapple which took up to two years to grow in his greenhouse. This love token shows Cupid about to fire an arrow from his bow. It is a relatively inexpensive piece of jewellery made from silver which weights little. In England jewellers made very similar lockets as a souvenir celebrating the marriage of Charles II to Catherine of Braganza in 1662. It seems Catherine had to endure a great deal in terms of infidelity to receive her love jewellery. We know this through the detailed private diary kept from 1660 – 1669 by a Member for Parliament and English naval administrator Samuel Pepys. His eyewitness accounts of events, such as the Great Fire and Great Plague are a rich legacy from this period in history and also provide an insight into the intrigues surrounding the court of Charles II and how Queen Catherine was treated…

Barbara Palmer (née Villiers), Duchess of Cleveland by Sir Peter Lely

…’The court of the second Charles of England fluttered with dazzling and frivolous beauties. They obscured the softer light of other women who boasted only such trite and gentle virtues as womanliness, the fear of God, modesty, honesty and truth. Queen Catherine’s contemporaries detested her …and have left her portrait to posterity painted in malignant colours…

…Catherine lived in her husband’s court as Lot lived in Sodom. …she was one of the best and purest women who ever shared the throne of England. She had equal qualities of head and heart, and both were beyond the average. It has been a pleasant and wholesome labor to trace her blameless life, and to unfold the wrappings that have long hidden the character refined and ennobled by much unnecessary suffering’.

Luscious, lascivious and lovely ladies, many of whom were well known to Charles, were more than often painted by court painter Sir Peter Lely. They always wore pearls as they were considered the essential accessory for the loose state of ‘undress’ ladies of rank at this time generally wore.

Mid seventeenth century court etiquette demanded that only someone of a superior rank could receive a person of lower rank when in a state of undress. By way of contrast a person of inferior rank had to be fully and formally attired when attending a person of superior rank. Wearing a state of undress in a portrait then underlined the fact that the sitter belonged to a very exclusive group of superior people.

The format was so successful and so pervasive that within thirty years everyone, irrespective of rank, was depicted in a similar way so those currently ranked in the upper echelon of society were then forced, once again to change their style preferences.

Ann Maria de' Medici - during the seventeenth century in Europe and England, expansion of trade and industry led to a period wherein costume was influenced more by currents in art and intellectual thought than by any other factor.

When she was 23 Ann Maria de’ Medici (1667-1743) married the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm.  The Medici workshops created an exemplary trousseau of works of art, which she took to Dusseldorf with her.

However when she returned to Florence a childless widow she brought back an outstanding collection of jewellery now known as the ‘Electress’ Jewels. They originally numbered just on 1000 objects. Today there are only a few dozen, with many pieces taken apart, melted down, or dispersed at auctions. She did her best to keep the family collections intact and her will clearly specified ‘that nothing was to be transported and removed from the Capital and the State of the Grand Duchy‘. She was the last of the famous Medici family of Florence and her death in 1743 brought their dynasty to an end.

Introduced by the Venetian gem-cutter Vicenti Peruzzi at the end of the 17th century, the modern brilliant cut evolved slowly until the present round form came into use after 1919. The original brilliant cut for diamonds had many facets of different shapes and sizes that were meant to increase its brilliance by minimising the amount of light that escaped from the bottom of the stone.

The Regent Diamond

At the Ball of the Clipped Yew Trees at Versailles in 1745 the Queen of France wore the Regent diamond, which weighed in at 140.50 carats, in her hair. This amazing gem had been found by a slave in an Indian mine in 1698 and concealed inside a large wound in his leg.

Stolen by an English sea captain it had an exciting journey until it joined the collection of jewels belonging to the Royal Family of France, was stolen at the Revolution, recovered and has been on display at the Louvre since 1887.

Marquise de Pompadour Louis XV of France's Mistress

However brilliant The Regent diamond was, it could not stop Louis XV from leaving the ball for a secret assignation with the Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, the lady who became the mistress of his heart for twenty years,

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson gained the title of the Marquise du Pompadour and she successfully attended to Louis every need leading a society whose parties co-existed easily with the intellectual ardour of the philosophes, who were endeavouring to give birth to an age of enlightenment and reason.

Louis gave this mistress of his heart a superb cameo of himself. Diamonds and emeralds surrounded it and she wore it on her bracelet. (pictured). A cameo was originally a gemstone having layers of different colours (eg. Sardonyx and cornelian) carved to show in relief the design and background in contrasting colours.

1st Century Cameo Set c1730 Onyx with gold, amber, tuquoises and rubies

Originating in Roman times the cameo regained its popularity during the Renaissance in Europe when Italian gem engravers working for prominent connoisseurs and collectors such as Lorenzo de Medici and his family started producing them once more.

Since then, with intervening periods, they have been made and mounted in articles of jewellery. This cameo pendant is inset with an onyx carved head of Dionysus in a gold surround set with amber, turquoises and rubies; the back engraved. From the collection of the V & A the cameo is 1st century AD; the setting probably German.

(The deeper the relief the more expensive these jewels were and they would reach their optimum in the second half of the 17th and 18th centuries when they were collected by many an English gentleman on his Grand Tour because they were not only very desirable but also easily transported.)

Madame du Barry

After the Marquise de Pompadour died the King was inconsolable. The Queen Consort was also dying and so the story goes Louis XV was passing through the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles one day and Aaong the crowd who came to see him, or sought to petition him, he caught sight of a young woman standing tall and straight, looking him full in the face and daring to smile.

At their first meeting there is a story, more than likely apocryphal but it’s great anyway, ‘that the beautiful lady curtsied three times as required by protocol and then went straight up to him and kissed him full on the mouth’.

Whatever, the truth of the meeting it certainly had an extraordinary effect on the extremely sad Louis and Jeanne Bécu became his last Mistress, and the infamous Comtesse Du Barry.

Hilary Swank (The Affair of the Necklace) wearing a reproduction of the infamous piece of 'love jewellery'

Visitors crowded into Paris during the years 1784 and 1785 to buy luxury goods when the harvest yielded more than enough wheat. One Charles Bohmer was appointed jeweller to her Majesty.  He desired to sell the most opulent piece of diamond jewellery he had ever made to King Louis XV for Mme du Barry.

He had collected 647 brilliants weighing 2800 carats and assembled it into a four-tier necklace; but the King died before he could conclude the sale.

He then tried to sell it to Marie-Antoinette, who refused it, so not to be outdone, he tried again through a distant relation of the now Louis XVI, not knowing this particular lady had an axe to grind with the Bourbons.

Jeanne de la Motte was so dazzled by the galaxy of diamonds spread before her she conceived a plot, which became the most audacious swindle in French history. It brought undone a great many people, including the King’s Cardinal and damaged the reputation of the monarchy, who became pawns in the ‘affair of the necklace’… (Movie starring Hilary Swank and Australian Simon Baker (The Mentalist).

Queen Marie Antoinette

France and Italy had both developed successful silk trades during the sixteenth century and by this time silk was one of France’s biggest industries centred at Lyon. Louis XIV had also established a manufactory of luxury goods that supplied all the other royal courts of Europe that was also thriving.

Marie Antoinette was, as are all first ladies of state even today, looked upon by the court and country as a leader of style. Her attitude toward the luxury trade threatened France’s economy,  employment and all those who relied on Royal Patronage. On the other hand the general populace wanted the royal family not to live in luxury but to share their wealth.

In real life Marie Antoinette preferred to wear simple muslin dresses and very little jewellery at all. As Queen she wore diamonds and silk on state occasions, including those given to her by Louis XVI as a token of his love. An avid gardener she particularly loved the rose, which was sacred to Venus and stood for love which is nearly always accompanied by the danger of hurt.

Mme du Barry was known for her refined and lavish taste and famous for the fabulous love jewels given to her by Louis XV, which she buried in her garden during the Reign of Terror. She refused to tell her accusers where they were until they said they would let her go if she did.  She and Marie Antoinette both paid the ultimate price, the so-called ‘Wages of Beauty’ (check out the novel by Joan Haslip).

Osterley Park Middlesex England

At the turn of the eighteenth in England and Wales three quarters of the population was still living in the countryside and also had a residence in town.

The success of the English Grand Tour meant that an increasing amount of gentlemen were exposed to a range of influences as well as other cultures. The pride and prejudices of the English Milordi were reflected in how they dressed, dined, performed and were entertained in a selection of social settings.

English eighteenth century literary wit Horace Walpole commented on his return from his Grand Tour in 1741. “I perceive… there is peculiar to us middling houses; how snug they are” ‘Middling houses’ were lived in by country gentry who were busy cultivating an ambience of politeness with a keen, though one must say ‘delicate sense and sensibility, well balanced by common sense’.

Keira Knightly as The Duchess

The age of light and elegance in the decorative arts and mind was lit by candlelight, and advances in mirror plate technology and its reflection encouraged the creation of lavish interiors and stunning jewellery. I would imagine Miss Tilney in Jane Austen’s “Northanger Abbey”, who inherited “a very beautiful set of pearls” from her mother, wore them for special occasions. Just as Mrs Elton did when she arrived at the ball in Emma “as elegant as lace and pearls could make her“, and boasted … “I see very few pearls in the room except mine”. What she would have seen was an extravagant display of necklaces; brooches and stomachers all set with coloured stones and diamonds like those reproduced for Keira Knightly to wear in The Duchess, the story of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

Georgian cabochon garnet and rose diamond ear pendants, foil backed gold settings courtesy of Ann Schofield Antiques, Sydney

Garnets are lovely gemstones and come in many colours however at this time the blood red variety was exceedingly popular. For those who were superstitious they were meant to have healing powers and for the romantics they were often exchanged as gifts between friends to demonstrate their affection for each other.

In the eighteenth century foil backings were still being used to enhance coloured gemstones that were shaped and polished as opposed to being faceted.(cabochon). The rose cut of diamond was popular before the advent of the brilliant cut. It had a flat base with two horizontal rows of facets rising to a point.  These lovely earrings have superb cabochon garnets surrounded by rose diamonds, which came into more regular use during the nineteenth century.

The most dramatic love jewels of this period were set in the form of arrows, an obvious reference to Cupid’s dart….a great many have survived made of paste, although hair ornaments were set with emeralds and diamonds and flat cut garnets. The amount and variety of precious materials available to make jewellery in the late eighteenth century by the time of the French Revolution was now expanding rapidly due to expeditions across the ocean to the New World.

The ideology and reality of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror would affect the western world for hundreds of years to come. The reign of Terror exacted an enormous price on the leading intellectuals, the aristocracy and the economy of France, as well as those seen to have supported them and for a time jewellery production would go into decline.

Fabulous French enamelled gold set with cornelian, pearls and emeralds brooch C1800

The symbols of love are the theme for this delightful piece of Love Jewellery, a brooch in the V & A Museum at London made from gold set with cornelian, pearls and emeralds. It contains Cupid’s bow and arrows (two loose and three in the quiver) which are arranged with a pair of kissing doves; two hearts on fire and a hymeneal torch (named after Hymen, the Greek goddess of marriage. They all form a diagonal composition of great elegance and effectiveness.

Carnelian (also spelled Cornelian) is a reddish-brown mineral commonly used as a semi-precious gemstone. Its use in the decorative arts is known from the Bronze Age and it was widely used in Roman times for setting into seal rings to imprint the insignia of the wearer on wax seals used for important documents and letters.The reason being wax did not stick to it.

Like most jewellery produced in France soon after the Revolution of 1789, the brooch is made of thin gold and contains few precious stones.  The design is pleasing, with at its heart the colour red, the colour of passion symbolising both revolutionary blood and romantic love.

….continued

Carolyn McDowall©The Culture Concept Circle 2009 – 2011

This is part two of a four part series. Read the rest of this series.

Read the 4 Installment Series in Chronological Order

Love Jewellery – Rome to Renaissance

Love Jewellery – Restoration to Revolution

Love Jewellery – Regency to Revival

Love Jewellery – Romantics to Retro

Related posts:

1. Love Jewellery from Cupid to Cartier
2. Love Jewellery – Regency to Revival
3. Love Jewellery – Rome to Renaissance